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Tigers, Nukes and OMT: What to Watch in the EU Oct. 13-17

By

Tom Fairless

Oct 13, 2014 3:17 am ET

Brussels-watchers should brace for a slowdown next week after the European Parliament’s hearings of Europe’s new commissioners last week. Still, a few big events are in the calendar out of town–especially in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. European Union judges are due to hear arguments for and against the European Central Bank’s unlimited bond-buying program, which has been challenged in Germany, and rule on whether the bloc was right to include Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers on a terrorist list.

1. European Union judges will review oral arguments on Tuesday in a German challenge to the European Central Bank’s bond-buying plan, known as Outright Monetary Transactions. Germany’s constitutional court referred to the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice some questions around whether the ECB’s September 2012 decision to create the OMT program violates EU law. The case was brought by a number of German academics and the left-wing political party Die Linke, who claim that the ECB exceeded its mandate with OMT, under which the central bank can purchase in potentially unlimited quantities bonds of EU governments that have agreed to reform programs…